An Object Lesson In Why You Really Shouldn't Do Homework After Two AM
by Noip13
Summary: Or, how Spider-Man's secret identity is finally revealed through a delicate combination of high school coursework, sleep deprivation, and poor file management. Warning: Crackish.


The most annoying thing about it, honestly, is that Peter had finally felt like he was getting this Spider-Man stuff under control. It had taken over a year of splitting his time between New York heroics, schoolwork, friends and family, and helping out Mr. Stark with Avengers-type stuff, but he was just about approaching a sane work-life balance.

So of course that's the exact moment when things go to shit.

It's a bit of a big day to begin with-presentations for his Intro to Video Production elective, where you had to make a one-man show kind of thing and edit it into some degree of coherency using all the concepts of shots and lighting and etc. they'd learned so far. Worth _two_ test grades. Peter is only the second person to present, so he's kind of nervous, but he's still feeling fairly confident. He'd been working on this damn presentation for two weeks, and had been up late last night polishing it to perfection. It was a thing of beauty.

More importantly, it was going to save his GPA from the inevitable dip that, along with no sleep, constant lies and excuses, and an even more restricted social life, came as part and parcel of the Secret Teenage Super-Hero Special Package. (Order now and get a free bag with your hero self's logo on it. _You know you want it._ )

With all this in mind, Peter walked up to the front of the classroom when his name was called with what was, in hindsight, an almost unforgivable strut.

He'd been asking for it, honestly. Parker luck, and all that.

Still-just, why.

* * *

Smothering a yawn, Peter plugs his computer into the TV installed in the front of his classroom and clicks on his video. It's already ready and waiting, and he hits play before he can stop to think, then turns to face his teacher, heart in his throat. Already, the doubts are surging back. He'd done kind of a goofy sketch, and it had seemed like a good idea at a time-but maybe no one else would think it was funny? Maybe Mr. Lane would deduct points for not taking this seriously enough, who knew how teacher's minds worked.

Mr. Lane is frowning. Frowning, _oh no-_

"You know, you can't show it to anyone," Happy says, and the first thing Peter thinks is, _why is Happy in my Intro to Video Production class,_ and the second thing he thinks is, _oh shit._

Peter Parker whirls around. His cringy one-man show isn't playing, nope, that's 100% definitely his _extremely top secret video of Berlin._ The one that, as the Happy in the video just said, _absolutely no one was supposed to see._

How the hell-

And then he remembers. He'd been sleep deprived and anxious, finishing up this presentation late into the night. He'd taken a break to organize some of his computer files-always calmed him down, geek that he was. And he'd stumbled across his Berlin "alibi" video and re-watched it to reminiscence and to laugh at how incredibly squeaky his voice had been.

(Like, it's still squeaky. But less so, Peter is pretty sure. He hopes.

Why don't spider powers come with magical skip-puberty buttons?)

And he'd been moving files and re-naming things _a lot._

Oh _shit,_ indeed _._

Peter snaps back to reality and whirls to look at his classmates. They're mostly confused, probably wondering what Peter Parker is doing on a private plane when it's eminently obvious everything he owns basically screams "purchased second-hand, currently being used to the literal breaking point". Except for MJ, who's grinning that weird smile she tends to wear a lot, but who knows with her, and Ned, who gestures furiously at the laptop and makes a cross-out, slam-shut motion.

It occurs to Peter that he should probably stop the video. He would have thought of this earlier, but he's honestly kind of freaking out right now.

"This is my first time on any plane."

The teacher clears his throat. "Um...Peter-"

The situation hammers into Peter like catching Captain America's mighty shield right in the gut, and he practically sprints the step or two back to the laptop. The video's still playing, why does this stuff always have to happen to him, he's going to be the first superhero to ever be outed because of a freaking _high school presentation_ -

He tries to close the video, but he has too many tabs open, and the soothing blue circle of death-by-loading rotates mockingly.

"C'mon, close, close," he three-quarters prays to the computer.

"No!" calls Flash from the back of the classroom, "I wanna see where this is going. How the hell did you get on a private plane to Berlin, Parker?"

There's a murmur of assent from his classmates. Meanwhile, the video mercilessly continues, as idiotic past-Peter babbles about Captain America and fancy hotel room sizes. After another second, Peter spares a glance up from his frantic machinations to check on the room. Ned's head is in hands, which Peter can't exactly blame him for. MJ's still has that weirdly smug smile. Flash is looking...extremely confused, which isn't unusual and is a fair bit better than the alternative. Most of the rest of the class is some shade between "also confused" and "thinking worryingly hard, considering how smart some of these guys are".

Peter glances up at the screen behind him. It's showing him in his handmade Spider-Man outfit, he has literally no time, shit, shit, _shit-_

Peter tries force-quitting, but it's loading too slow. Tries some keyboard shortcuts, but they're taking forever to close up. Tries force-quitting Chrome, but still taking too long, and then-

A gasp rings through the classroom, mirrored by past-him's gasp at the gorgeous Stark Spider-Man suit, and Peter wants to slam his head in his thrice-accursed, beat-up, piece of junk old laptop.

"This is the greatest day of my life," video-Peter declares cheerfully, life-ruiningly.

Peter presses down on the touchpad of his laptop as hard as he can, praying the close button would actually register it this time-

It breaks.

The touchpad actually breaks.

Proportionate strength of a spider, and all that.

Just... _wonderful._

He looks up again. On the screen, Spider-Man is enthusiastically squeaking: "...and I stole his shield and I threw it at him and-the hell, he's big now-" and that one giant dude soars up into the sky behind him and he lunges away from the camera. A second later, a figure flies across the screen high in the air.

Yeah, Berlin had been nuts.

Peter looks over at Mr. Lane.

 _Huh, I didn't know people's mouths could open that far._

He looks up at his classmates.

Ned is staring at Peter and slowly shaking his head in disappointment. Peter, once again, can't really blame him.

MJ still wears that same inscrutable smile, because she's simultaneously wonderful and kind of a jerk.

As for Flash, the whites of his eyes are currently taking up a lot more of his eyes' surface area than is probably healthy. Despite himself, Peter can't help but enjoy the complete, dumbfounded shock on the ass's face. He mentally saves it under "favorites", to pull out at any time over what is definitely going to be a less-than-pleasant week. Month. Whatever.

The rest of his classmates are a pretty close approximation of Mr. Lane and Flash. He almost feels insulted. Is it really that weird for him to be Spider-Man? It's not like he's absolutely hopeless in Phys. Ed anymore, even if he obviously has to hide most of his abilities.

Which is probably going to change.

Yay.

"Um, Parker?" Mr. Lane says faintly. "You can...go back to your seat now."

"Right," Peter says. He doesn't move. _Just as soon as I stop dissociating, sir._

The blue circle finally stops spinning, and the video closes.

* * *

AN: This was originally inspired by a tumblr post by pssebe.

This is a little weird for me, as I wrote this piece in like an hour and had a ton of issues with it as I went through it-but I need to practice just...writing, you know? Rather than second-guessing myself a thousand times. So hey, it's not perfect, but it made me laugh and I hope it made you laugh, too.

Constructive criticism is always welcomed!


End file.
